Labor Day part 2: The park

Ok, its 11 pm and really I should be in bed since I have work and Curriculum Night tomorrow, but I really wanted to get this blog up as well.  So pics will be posted, but my narrative is going to be pretty boring because my creativity is pretty much out the window at this time of night!

Today our little family enjoyed a lovely lazy Monday off of work and daycare.  We took 2 naps, we went out to lunch, we played, and we went to the park.  Gavin loves the park.  I usually take him there in his wagon, and he now starts getting excited the minute he catches sight of the park.  The park is actually made up of three separate areas:  the "big kids" playground, the "little kids" playground, and the "baby" swings and rocking horses.  The baby part is the farthest away walking from our house, so I usually have to pick up the speed the minute Gav catches sight of the big kids playground because he starts trying to unbuckle out of the wagon and keeps doing the more sign and pointing at the swings!

The swings are definitely Gavin's favorite part of the park.  I always have to cut him off, because I think we would be there for hours if I waited for him to get bored.  Here's a few swing pics:

The normal happy swing face.  Gav is pointing at the rocking horsies.  He always wants to go over and check them out, but once we get up close, he gets terrified and practically climbs up my legs.  I don't blame him, the paint job makes those horsies look a little crazy.

If you pull up this pic to full size, you can see that Gavin has another tooth popping through on the bottom.  He also has a molar coming in on top!

During this trip to the park, Gavin figured out that he can lean forward in the swing and be even more of a daredevil!

A good action shot of Gavin doing laps around the playground.

This was also the first time Gavin successfully got up to standing without anything to pull up on!

One last walking shot.  These were hard to get with me constantly envisioning Gavin falling face first and knocking out a tooth.  I was a worrier before I became a parent, but when Gav went gleefully roaming around the playground today, I realized that I will have lots more to worry about in the years to come! 

Labor Day part 1: The Zoo

We had a wonderful Labor Day weekend.  It struck me when I was pushing Gavin on the swings at the park today that I now have memories of Gavin tied to every holiday and day of the year.  This time last year, Kyle and Allison were getting married (Happy Anniversary guys!), and our little family of 3 was in attendance (although the sleep deprivation caused by a 3 week old means I don't remember much about that wedding!).

It was about this time last year that I was sure that life would never be the same.  I was right, but not in the depressing way I had envisioned.  I was sure a year ago that I would never have a minute to myself again, that I would never sleep more than 2 hours at a time, and that there would always be dirty bottles in my sink (ok, I was right about that one!). 

But I'm happy to report to any new mom or pregnant girl that it really DOES get better (like everyone at Kyle and Allison's wedding told me as I sat bleary eyed with a crying newborn at 11pm!).  Life doesn't return to normal, but that would have been silly to expect, and boring now that I look back!  There are still challenging times, but Ryan and I are really enjoying this stage of Gavin's life.  He has just gotten a solid handle on walking, he's using his "words" (dada and uh oh) in the appropriate context more often, and he just loves to play and explore.  In short, it's pretty fun.  But as I've discussed with moms both new and experienced, raising a child is all about stages.  So in my short year of mommyhood, I think I've learned the lesson that I need to really LOVE the fun stages, and just grin and bear it though the tough stages.

We did a lot of fun stuff this weekend.  Some of that fun stuff involved simply laying around and enjoying 3 days off of work.  And some of the fun stuff involved actually leaving our house :)  The pics below are from our trip to the zoo with Grandma and Grandpa Gillespie and Uncle Kyle and Aunt Allison!

Gavin telling Grandpa all about the giraffes.  After all, this is his 4th trip to the zoo this summer!

Look at those grins...what are these two planning?

A family pic with our new walker!

Gavin loves to walk in public places.  He has not quite figured out how to avoid moving targets though. 

This is an incredibly rare occurence.  Gavin just simply does not show much affection, and certainly doesn't hug people and put his head on their shoulders.  But he has gotten a little better lately.  Ryan and I can get a kiss out of him every once in a while instead of a hand to the face.  And Grandpa rules all.  Grandpa is definitely first on the depth chart, with Mommy a close second. 

As always, the gorillas in Tropic World are a big hit.  However, this was our first trip to the zoo where I felt like Gavin was really noticing more of the animals.

The cut out picture is a tradition now, we've done it every time we've been to the zoo.  Although this time we switched it up and let Mommy get in the pic!

1 year letter

A little late, but here is our 1 year letter to Gav:

Dear Gavin,

Happy First Birthday!! Daddy and I can't believe how quickly a year has gone by. We can still clearly remember everything that happened a year ago today. We remember Mommy waking up at 5 in the morning with contractions. We remember hanging out at home and getting excited to meet our little boy, while Mommy drove your stroller around the living room to help with the contractions! We remember getting to the hospital, and watching Mad Men just before you decided to join us. And of course we remember that at 12:13 am on Monday, August 17th, our perfect baby boy came into this world!

So much has happened in a year Gavin! You have grown from 8lbs, 6 oz to 23 lbs, 3 oz. You're much taller now too, going from 20.5 inches to 31 inches! On the day you were born, you could barely open your eyes and you had marks on your mouth and hands from sucking on your fists so much. Now you are walking, eating, playing and starting to talk!

These days you love to play with anything that you can walk around the house. You love to walk with your lion, shop with your grocery cart, and fill up and dump out your lego wagon. Your ball popper is one of your new favorite toys, and so is your music set, especially the drumsticks!

You're getting better at making up your own games too. You like to take anything you can find and throw it through the rails on your baby gates. It's always fun to throw balls as hard as you can (usually backwards) and then chase after them before they've even come to a stop! You're also starting to like playing outside more. Wagon rides are a big hit, since you can see everything going on around you. We visit the park more often now, and you love to swing and go down the slide all by yourself!

Your tastes in food are changing too, Gavin. You used to eat anything Mommy and Daddy would offer you, but now you're developing your own preferences. You absolutely LOVE bananas, cheese, crackers/bread, and chicken. Everything else seems to depend on the day. Somedays you love pasta, other days, you just throw it back in our faces (we're working on your manners!). You drink whole milk now, and love to drink water out of your sippy cup.

Your days are busy, Gavin, and filled with fun activities. Music is a big part of your life, whether its dancing along to the Yo Gabba Gabba theme song, listening to your Music Machine CD in the car, or singing "la la la la la" along with Daddy. You also love to read. Peek A Boo Zoo and Five Little Ladybugs are your favorite books to read by yourself. And you still love to be read to, especially anything Dr. Seuss, the bear books, or your I Love You Daddy book.

At night you have a set routine, and you are usually a good sleeper. You used to love your baths, Gavin, but lately you're very scared of the water. Daddy and I have tried to make bath time more fun and less stressful, and the tons of bath toys you have seem to help! After bath time, its usually a bed time story and a kiss good night, and you're off in slumberland while listening to your lullabies.

Since you started sleeping in your crib, Gavin, Mommy and Daddy have come in every night before we go to bed to check on you and just marvel at how perfect you are. We feel very blessed to have such a beautiful, wonderful little boy sleeping in the next room over.

It's been an amazing year, Gavin! You've gone from our tiny baby boy to our awesome little toddler. We can't wait to see what the next year brings, and we're enjoying every minute! Happy first birthday big boy! We love you so much Gavin Michael!

Love, Mommy and Daddy

Gavin and Daddy having a rational conversation

The title really says it all.  Enjoy the video!

Coloring

Gavin got a ton of cool stuff for his birthday, and we have enjoyed playing with all of it.  He has so much new stuff that our guest room has turned into an upstairs toy room until we figure out a better place/way to play with all his bigger and better toys.

One of the toys that is now housed in the upstairs toy room is Gavin's new table and chairs.  Those little table and chairs remind me of two things: 1.  Eating at the "kids table" at family dinners, and 2.  coloring.  Ryan and I were both avid colorers back in our day, so we were excited to introduce Gavin to his first box of crayons.  This is embarrassing to admit, but I actually had my own box of 64 crayons sitting around (like I said, I was an avid colorer back in the day...and now ;p).  So we broke those out, along with a few pieces of printer paper and let Gavin create some art.

Choosing just the right color, or the right 17 colors.

Experimenting with techniques.

Having an artist's block.

The frustrated artitst!  (And no, Gav did not learn how to write his numbers already, that's all Daddy's doing.)

The love of coloring gene has been passed on!

Trying to create a new color by coloring the crayons with each other.

Gavin invites Maurice to join him...

...and shows him the joys of coloring the blinds.

Gavin is 1 year old!!

On August 16th and 17th, I spent a lot of time thinking about what was going on a year ago.  I say the 16th because for those of you that know your Gavin trivia, Gav was born at 12:13am on the 17th, so most of the "fun" happened on the 16th.  I remembered waking up at 5am and thinking, "oh, that's what a contraction feels like."  I remember waking Ryan up at 6am and telling him "I think its time to start timing these things!"  I remember walking the stroller around in circles in our then empty living room, because it helped during the contractions.  I remember demanding that Ryan take me to Quiznos to lunch for one last turkey and swiss, even though I had a contraction in the middle of ordering!  I remember trying to wait until our induction time to go to the hospital (yes, Gavin waited until the exact last minute to come on his own, that stinker!), and just barely making it.  I remember every bump and railroad track on the way to Lake Forest Hospital.  I remember having a moment of calm after we checked in and I got my epidural, when Ryan and I watched the season premiere of Mad Men.  And then I remember the best part of all...being overcome with emotion when our sweet "little" Gavin joined us at 12:13.  It's hard to believe that it was a year ago already!

I owe Gavin a 1 year letter, but I haven't gotten around to that yet.  I've also been in the process of updating his baby book and putting together a photo book commemorating his first year of life, as well as gearing up to go back to school.  But I've also decided to try to get back into the swing of blogging on a more regular basis.  I enjoy going back and reading old blogs.  There are SO many things that I would have forgotten about Gavin's first year if I hadn't written it in a blog.  So even though it may sometimes be time consuming and a little tedious, that's my resolution; hold me to it!

On Gav's actual birthday, Ryan took the day off work and we took Gavin to the zoo.  We did not realize that the 17th was also free kids day, so the rest of Chicagoland joined us in our zoo celebration.  Even with the free day, it still wasn't unbearably crowded.  And, because it was so crazy, we got to park in section Lion 1.  For those of you that don't know, thats THE best place to park in the zoo.  Needless to say, Ryan and I were thrilled with our VIP parking status :)

Before we left for the zoo, we took a pic of me holding Gav.  Hard to believe he used to be the tiny cutie in the pic below this one!

8-18-09: What a difference a year makes!

Daddy trying to convince Gavin that the dolphin show is fun (My favorite overheard conversation at the zoo was between a grandma and her 5 year old grandson: Gson: "Grandma, there is no such thing as a dolphin show!" GMa: "Fine. Then you'll stand outside while Grandpa and I watch the dolphins." Gson: stunned silence and jaw dropped open. :)

I am horrible at timing my pictures.  The only reason we get good pics of Gavin is because Ryan takes them.  Here is my attempt at catching the dolphins doing something cool.

Gavin approves.

Dolphin shows are exhausting!

Like usual, Gavin was thrilled in Tropic World, especially the gorilla part.

Observing the gorillas.

I made the boys do another cutout pic, this time with otters instead of dragonflys.  Another big difference for this pic: Gavin can stand on his own now, instead of getting dangled while Ryan tries to line up their faces!

That night, we felt it was only right to let Gavin have a celebratory cupcake.  It's funny how quickly he starts to do the more sign once frosting is involved.

No surprise here, Gav still loves baked goods with tons of sugary frosting on top!

Happy First Birthday Gavin!

Gavin's First Birthday Party!

Although Gavin doesn't officially turn one for two more days, we held his birthday party yesterday (I didn't think a Tuesday night party would go over very well!).  The party was a success!  A lot of our family and some of our friends were able to come and celebrate with the Gavster.

Since Gav loves monkeys, his birthday party had a monkey theme.  So here are the obligatory pics of the decorations (because darn it, I spent money and time putting these things up, so there will be evidence that they existed! :)

Gavin's personalized birthday banner...its amazing what you can do with the internet.  How did people survive before Google?!

I wish I could have taken a picture to capture the look on Gav's face when he saw this monkey balloon for the first time.  He absolutely loved it, and then started punching it in the face, which for Gavin seems to be a sign of affection!

Aunt Allison knew of Gavin's love for monkeys as well, and made these awesome monkey cupcakes!

Ok, on to the actual party.  I warn you, there are going to be a lot of pics in this post, so buckle up!  Here Gavin and his friend Olivia are working on opening the pile of presents.  Gavin helped with about the first 3 presents and then decided it would be a lot more fun to play with the opened presents than doing the work of unwrapping, that's what Mommy is for!

As with any child I've ever met, Gavin was more interested in ripping the paper into tiny bits than in actually playing with the present.

I'm not sure what he's excited about here, but I just thought it was a cute pic.  He looks so old here!

Gavin clapping for the wagon.  He really does love it, he already went on a ride with Grandma and Grandpa Gillespie this morning.

Time for some shirtless cake eating!

These days, kids get their own cake to go crazy on called a "smash cake."  Gavin is trying to figure out what's going on here...

...tasting the first dainty finger of frosting...

...and quickly deciding that fistfuls of cake (frosting, I think he might have accidentally ingested some actual cake) is much more effective.

A good pic of the destruction.

"Where has cake been all my life?"

A birthday shot with Mommy and Daddy.  This is before Ryan smeared cake on my face.

Overall, we had a great time and we hope Gavin and his guests did too!  Happy (almost) First Birthday Gav!

(Are Ry and I the only ones that think that 1 looks like a 2?!)